New Garrett Theater

[AVSMike]

Currently looking at designing my new theater. Still a little way out, since I have not bought the house yet. The room is currently 30' long and 15'-4" wide with an 8'-2" ceiling. Only problem is the ceiling only has a 7' wide flat and then slopes down at a 45 degree angle. The room has a large window at one end and a curved freestanding staircase at the other end. My plan is to section off this room by building a baffle wall about four feet in front of the window and then build a rear wall around 8' in from the other end. That would give me 17'-6" x 15'-4" x 8'-6" room to work with. Audio wise, I will reuse a lot of what I have.


The baffle wall, it will be built flat, all the way across the room. But I will build it with an access door 24" x 50" to get behind the baffle wall. Baffle wall will be flat. I am trying to plan for the future. A future where this baffle will need to be flat for a 130" TV or modular flat panel.

The new baffle wall will be very much like my current one, except I will have four 18" subs in the baffle wall, rather than two. Each of the subs will be in 4.0CF (interior volume) sealed enclosures. In my existing baffle wall I had a recess at the bottom for the three 18" woofers for my LCR's which were in  separate enclosures. This time, the baffle wall will not have the recess, So it will extend fully to the floor. All speakers and subs in the baffle wall will be flush with the baffle wall. The four subs and the three LCR woofers will all be in 4.0CF sealed enclosures. I will reuse my current 120" diagonal 2.37 power masking screen.

I only plan to install three seats in the room. Performance of this room will be similar to my existing room, with the exception that audio should be better due to larger room. The projector will be mounted outside the room. For side surrounds, I am thinking i will use RBH 831 SW/R on wall speakers. That way I have flexibility to move them if/when going to a flat panel. Rear speakers will be a pair of existing RBH 661SE in Burled Walnut on stands. Atmos speakers are undecided at this time, but they will be enclosed speakers mounted to ceiling speaker brackets, aimed at the main listening position.

The system will start out as a 7.1.4 using 3 subs (two pairs of 18 and one pair of 24's), but wired for 9.1.6. I am wiring for wides and for a total of six atmos speakers. Since I am reusing much of the same gear, I know the electrical requirements and will go ahead and install this work. Will be pulling five 120 volt 20amp circuits and one 220 volt 30 amp circuit to an alcove right outside the room, where the rack will be placed.

Have added a picture of the existing space and a picture of my current baffle wall. just picture the baffle wall not having the recess at the bottom and two pairs of 18" subs in the wall.

[David Vaughn]

I look forward to reading about you build Mike. Looks like it will be a good space. 

[AVSCraig]

You must be moving to a new house. Sounds like a big project. 

[bmoney]

Love build threads. Look forward to the journey!

[AVSMike]

Laid out and cut out all of the box for electrical and speaker connection behind where the rack will go. I also pulled five 40' runs of 12/2 with ground and one 40' run of 10/2 with ground. Forgot to take pictures. Will do so tomorrow. Not sure how much I will get done tomorrow, have a funeral to go to. Do want to get all the circuits completed this weekend. 

[SRW1000]

Good luck with the build, such an exciting time!  I'm envious of your plan to put the projector outside of the room - a huge benefit to lowering the noise floor of the room.

[AVSMike]

I just calculated the coverage of the horns on my tweeters, to see what the variance would be per seat, if I just went with a flat baffle. With my current 8' viewing distance. I can get the tweeter to within plus/minus 2.3db in all seats, with main seat at a theoretical 0db difference. The viewing angle to right and left main would be 25 degrees. So within Dolby spec. This will be much simpler to build and would require very little modification, if I ever went to 130" TV or modular panel. 

[AVSMike]

Installed 850LF of 12 gauge speaker wire this weekend. Ran 16 runs. 27 total runs to be pulled. Also ran the power to the projector location and a 1" smurf tube to the baffle wall location for control. Lights and dimmers are coming tomorrow. Will test to make sure I like how they dim, before installing the lights.

[bmoney]

Did you just fish it all through? Or remove drywall?

[AVSMike]

Did you just fish it all through? Or remove drywall?

Fishing it all and it wasn't easy.

[Paul Heroy]

Good job Mike. I'm trying to fish just one 25' run of coax for an OTA antenna in my attic, with some existing cables & holes in place and it's a pain!

[bmoney]

yikes.  yeah fishing is awful.  glad its done though

[AVSMike]

yikes.  yeah fishing is awful.  glad its done though

I wish mine was done. I have 11 more runs of speaker pulls to make. Running a 9.1.6 system with five subs and since my LCR's are 3-way active, it take 9 runs just for them.

[AVSCraig]

Good job Mike. I'm trying to fish just one 25' run of coax for an OTA antenna in my attic, with some existing cables & holes in place and it's a pain!

I hope I'm done going in the attic. It can be extremely hot in my attic during the summer. For some reason that's always when I have to run speaker wire up there! 

[bmoney]

I wish mine was done. I have 11 more runs of speaker pulls to make. Running a 9.1.6 system with five subs and since my LCR's are 3-way active, it take 9 runs just for them.

Omg hahahaha